Fact is, it doesnt matter. Not one bit. And Ill show you mathematically:

1) When the US federal government spends money, expenses are officially categorized in three different ways.

Discretionary spending includes nearly everything we think of related to government the US military, Air Force One, the Department of Homeland Security, TSA agents who sexually assault passengers, etc.

Mandatory spending includes entitlements like Medicare, Social Security, VA benefits, etc. which are REQUIRED by law to be paid.

The final category is interest on the debt. It is non-negotiable.

Mandatory spending and debt interest go out the door automatically. Its like having your mortgage payment autodrafted from your bank account Congress doesnt even see the money, its automatically deducted.

2) With the rise of baby boomer entitlements and steady increase in overall debt levels, mandatory spending and interest payments have exploded in recent years. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office predicted in 2010 that the US governments TOTAL revenue would be exceeded by mandatory spending and interest expense within 15-years. Thats a scary thought. Except it happened the very next year.

For Fiscal Year 2012 which just ended 37 days ago, that shortfall increased 43% to $251.8 billion.

In other words, they could cut the entirety of the Federal Governments discretionary budget no more military, SEC, FBI, EPA, TSA, DHS, IRS, etc. and they would still be in the hole by a quarter of a trillion dollars.

4) Raising taxes wont help. Since the end of World War II, tax receipts in the US have averaged 17.7% of GDP in a very tight range. The low has been 14.4% of GDP, and the high has been 20.6% of GDP.

During that period, however, tax rates have been all over the board. Individual rates have ranged from 10% to 91%. Corporate rates from 15% to 53%. Gift taxes, estate taxes, etc. have all varied. And yet, total tax revenue has stayed nearly constant at 17.7% of GDP.

It doesnt matter how much they increase tax rates they wont collect any more money.

5) GDP growth prospects are tepid at best. Facing so many headwinds like quickening inflation, an enormous debt load, and debilitating regulatory burdens, the US economy is barely keeping pace with population growth.

6) The only thing registering any meaningful growth in the US is the national debt. It took over 200 years for the US government to accumulate its first trillion dollars in debt. It took just 286 days to accumulate the most recent trillion (from $15 trillion to $16 trillion).

Last month alone, the first full month of Fiscal Year 2013, the US government accumulated nearly $200 billion in new debt 20% of the way to a fresh trillion in just 31 days.

7) Not to mention, the numbers will only continue to get worse. 10,000 people each day begin receiving mandatory entitlements. Fewer people remain behind to pay into the system. The debt keeps rising, and interest payments will continue rising.

8) Curiously, a series of polls taken by ABC News/Washington Post and NBC News/Wall Street Journal show that while 80% of Americans are concerned about the debt, roughly the same amount (78%) oppose cutbacks to mandatory entitlements like Medicare.

9) Bottom line, the US government is legally bound to spend more money on mandatory entitlements and interest than it can raise in tax revenue. It wont make a difference how high they raise taxes, or even if they cut everything else that remains in government as we know it.

This is not a political problem, its a mathematical one. Facts are facts, no matter how uncomfortable they may be. Todays election is merely a choice of who is going to captain the sinking Titanic.

Facts are stubborn things. Every election has consequences, sure. But every election is less a test of the incumbent or the challenger, or their Party or "ground game," etc., and more certainly a test of the electorate.

The nation might (or might not) have dodged a generation-scale bullet, tonight. Mitt Romney, for all his intentions, may very well live to thank "his lucky stars" for having dodged his own bullet, tonight.

Since the economic s*** may hit the fan in the next year or two, I have wondered why anyone would want to be president now. Perhaps it is better for this to happen under a Democrat regime, because the libs would have blamed capitalism (not something we’ve really had in a long time) if Mitt had won. Nobody wants to give up his particular government goodies, so the outlook for this country is indeed grim. I really doubt Romney could have made a difference.

4
posted on 11/06/2012 10:59:46 PM PST
by Pining_4_TX
( The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else. ~)

I like the third option: State Constitutional Conventions, followed by splitting the USA into multi-State regions, with each region responsible for paying off their share, AND ONLY THEIR SHARE, of the National Debt.

I am not Campion, but I believe we will see massive inflation and a world economic crash because the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. The World Bank/UN will at some point face overwhelming pressure to create a new world currency and we will no longer be sovereign.

Our political leaders are incapable and unwilling to make hard choices. They promised the checks and they will deliver even when the checks are worthless. We are on the path to disaster and I strongly encourage you and anyone else that believes this is possible (or probable) to prepare accordingly to take care of you and yours.

While I certainly agree with Black that this coming financial chaos cannot be avoided, I still, after some lengthy internal arguments decided that Romney was perhaps the last chance we would have to slow the beast down for the sake of the country.

I have perhaps another 5 years to breathe the American air, and I did not want to die while at the same time watching my country die with me. I thought I had left something to build on to my children and grandchildren, but tonight I threw in the towel....

Obama will indeed own this and Romney will escape the same fate that GWB suffered. The Republican party however will be savaged by the dims as they divert responsibility and successfully label the GOP as the root cause of all of it since we still hold the House. (at least for two more years) I think it's time to have that moment of clarity now. That moment you only get a couple of times in any lifetime, and just grin....

We are stuck in a ZIRP trap. Because the deficit is so high, even with the Zero Interest Rate Program, the interest payments now suck up over 20% of our federal revenues. For Joe Taxpayer, it means we get a pitiful return on our savings, at a time when inflationary pressures are forcing up the costs of essential goods like food and fuel. Since raising the rates would cause our interest payments to skyrocket (thereby consuming even more of our Federal Revenues), we'll be stuck in the ZIRP trap for many years to come. Meanwhile, the dollars you saved or the money you earned loses value on a daily basis.

We've reached "The Tipping Point." Once debt exceeds 77% of GDP, any increase above the point causes a corresponding contraction in the private sector. We are now at 103% of GDP, and growing.

Europe has already recapitalized their banks, and has started their second Vienna Compact in an effort to save banks in emerging markets. Despite this, the economies are still contracting and the EU is crying to the IMF and ECB for more funds.

When Greece leaves the EU, it will send a shock wave across the derivative market to the projected tune of $22 Trillion (yes, Trillion) dollars.

England has already openly acknowledge they are in another recession.

I've been warning people for quite some time now that we are in a long-wave contraction. Too many conservative pundits and writers blamed the "Obama Economy" for the mess we are in; they were wrong. This is a global depression, and the next wave is going to hurt more than the first.

But most Obama voters don't want to give up their goodies, so they will be like Berlin, partying on while the world burns.

I realize we call them entitlements, but people aren’t really entitled to them. I mean, they can’t sue to get them should we overturn the laws, can they? I never understood why we pretend like some laws are considered to be locked in. They can’t tie the hands of future legislators, in my opinion.

There is the matter of national prestige and repudiation if obligations. Whatever we have already borrowed we are obliged to pay back. We gave repudiated debt before, and on a massive scale, contrary to what most people seem to beloved. It was called going off the gold standard. But I’m not advocating that. Pay outstanding debt.

What I do advocate is repudiation of “unfunded liabilities.” These are liabilities why? Because the law says we have to oat them. What if we change the law before they’re due? Does that violate some principle of which I am not aware? Because as far as I’m concerned past laws cannot bind the future. We can simply change the law before it comes due. And this is not a matter of “we owe it to ourselves.” We don’t owe it yet, really. They do not constitute a contract, nor even a promise.

One Congress cannot have an irrevocable claim on the pockets of future generations merely because a law they passed happens to perpetuate itself. It can for what it borrows, because that is a real debt. But not what people decades after passage of Medicare, etc., thought maybe they’d get, you know, if the money was there.

To clarify I’m saying we won’t reform entitlements not because we’re locked in with no way out. We could take a hammer to the self-perpetuation machine. We won’t because no one will want to be seen as repudiating long expected goodies, at least not for people past a certain age. And even then we’re only willing to talk about weening youngsters off the entitlement juggernaut. Bush II kinda sorta tried, but fizzled. No one will go through wiyh it, I predict.

Entitlements will persist not because they are omnipotent, rather because we’re weak.

Maybe it would've sunk a little bit slower with a Republican president at the helm, though.

That is all I was hoping for with Romney. Maybe a few months of real growth before the collapse. Now the world has no short term growth possibilities. And the rich will continue their exodus from the US, as the middle class, shouldered with the burden, collapses.

but Congress and all govt in this country anyway will not want to “violate” another congress’s work...but what they really mean is they really don’t want to change anything...they’ll look glum and talk a good game but most politicians really love the govt to own and run everything..

Alas you have bought into the DIm language that some program passed by one Congress can not be undone by another Congress. What you along with the DIms and MSMediots call mandatory spending or entitlements are in fact promises.

Some promises are kept and some are not. One Congress can not bind another Congress to keep its promises. So far with the more popular of these promises Congresses have gone along with past Congresses.

If the economy does not start growing and generating more revenue, that will not necessarily continue forever. When two workers are supporting one retiree, the retiree necessarily will get only some fraction of what the workers produce, no matter what the retiree was promised.

People do not realize that we have spent and taxed ourselves into oblivion. Literally. The country cannot stay on this course. People will end up dying in the streets. Either from homelessness and neglect...or from civil war.

When the unemployment of our under 25 year old male population continues to climb, added to reductions in benefits and an weakening America abroad...it is a bad, bad mix.

The best thing now is to not anticpate any entitlements, save all of your money. Screw paying down debt..you can pay it off in a year with money worth a lot less. Buy hard assets, Gold, Silver, Guns, stuff that will work a long time and that can be mobile. Because if you do not own your home....you will be moving.

Hyperinflation? Well, debasing the currency is an old standard for getting out of sovereign debt holes. But, just as with the Weimar, the over-wrought machinery of democracy can quickly morph into the lower life form known as mob rule, even if economic times become relatively better.

That is all I was hoping for with Romney. Maybe a few months of real growth before the collapse.

I think that's what we all were hoping for. Now it looks like we're headed into the abyss. This journey should be interesting, to say the least. I noticed the president, in his victory speech, said something like, "Now we can continue with the work of perfecting our union..." Whoa. Frightening.

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